Christmas in Apple Ridge (8 page)

He set his mug on the railing, grabbed his cane, and walked around the side of the house. Her letter was an odd mix of thoughts and emotions. Even in its brevity it conveyed business, open admiration of his work, and hesitation to share the rawness she felt inside. Maybe that was why she sounded so different in her letter than at the farm.

He’d heard quite a few things inside that note, although he couldn’t identify them. As the day wore on and he cut fresh lumber and sold from the seasoned stacks, his thoughts returned to the letter. He read it two more times, trying to hear what she wasn’t saying. That was what his
Urgrossdaddi
Jonah used to say to him before he died—“If you hear what’s not being said, you’ll hear the heart of the matter.”

She’d written, “The minutes began ticking by hours ago, and I continue to wrestle with what to share and what to keep to myself.” Clearly, she’d struggled to break through the reluctance he saw when she’d visited. Maybe her inability to talk openly was why she’d asked for them to exchange letters. In person she’d been just another woman, but her letter seemed to have touched something inside him.

While Jonah drove the horse and buggy home after work, Amos cracked jokes. “Two snowmen were standing in a field. One says to the other, ‘Funny, I smell carrots too.’ ”

Cutting and loading lumber for twelve hours straight was exhausting, but Amos rarely seemed tired at the end of a day.

“You don’t always have to entertain me.”

In a rare moment of seriousness, Amos became still. “But when you laugh, I feel like I’ve done something to help ease …” He let the sentence drop and stared out the side of the rig.

His brother’s past recklessness couldn’t be changed. The incident
that dogged Amos would never be wiped out, not even through endless moments of amusement. They both knew that. Jonah had forgiven him long before Amos could look him in the eye again, but Amos seemed to find his redemption through the friendship and loyalty he offered Jonah.

“Nothing needs to be eased, Amos.”

Amos scratched his face through his whiskers. “When I grow up, I want to be like you.”

Jonah chuckled. “You’re the oldest of the family, and even your young uns have given up on you growing up.”

“Well, aren’t you just full of good spirit today? So, you gonna write some of that charm and wit in a letter to that woman?”

Jonah glanced from the road to his brother.

Amos shrugged. “I saw you reading it again at work. Clearly she has your attention.”

His brother’s statement forced Jonah to think about his emotions. He couldn’t deny he had some odd feelings about her. From the moment Pete had placed Beth’s business card in his hand and told him of her strong interest in his work, he’d felt a stirring within. And the pleasure of writing to her, sharing parts of himself that he’d not shared with anyone else, and the enjoyment of reading her letter again and again hinted at a possible connection with her. But in person she seemed more like a nervous chicken than an intriguing woman. He supposed that might fade with time.

“Jonah?”

“Maybe.”

He pulled into the driveway and let Amos off in front of his home before driving the rig under the overhang. After putting the horse in the pasture, he tossed feed into its trough.

Gazing across the field, he watched a flock of chimney swifts circle above the horizon. At sunset each day they made an odd twittering sound as more birds arrived. Each year, in late summer and early fall, this ritual took place until the flock nearly blackened the sky. Then one evening they wouldn’t show up, and he’d know they’d taken off for South America. They were usually gone by now, but perhaps the delay of fall weather had them remaining longer than usual.

Life’s mysteries could no more be understood than the thoughts of a flock of birds. The living was ruled by instincts and God-designed principles His creatures had little say over.

And desire
.

He reached into his pocket, feeling the letter. Beth wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to reveal too much. Walking into his shop and to the old part of the building, he thought back to when he’d lost two fingers, full use of one leg, and more than a year of his life.

His siblings suffered nightmares and guilt, but thankfully, that was all. For the lives he’d managed to save, his loss was worth it. Would he have saved any of them had he known the price beforehand? He ran his palm across the dusty leather seat of the sleigh. When he was a teen, his parents had allowed him to decide the sleigh’s fate. He’d refused to get rid of it or to use it, so here it sat, making a grown woman think children were hiding under it. It hid things, all right, but childish games and laughter were not part of its secret.

It would take weeks of work to restore the sleigh, and he’d need the help of a blacksmith. He turned to leave. Some things just weren’t worth it.

And some were.

He walked the narrow dirt aisle between the stalls of the old building to his workshop bench. He’d created only one other thing since carving the piece Beth bought. A gift box. He’d made it from the same log, but he’d not yet carved it.

He’d tried. Even now, as his hands moved over the rough-hewn treasure, he couldn’t visualize what he should carve. That had been the problem for months. Ready to know the thoughts of the man who’d taught him his craft, he tucked the box under his arm.

He went to the barn and hitched a horse to the carriage. As the horse ambled down the road, Jonah leaned back and enjoyed the scenery. Rolling hills, thick foliage on the trees, lush pastures. While looking out over the fields, he let his memory roll back to the day he’d dragged that fallen tree out of the canyon, and he realized just how much he looked forward to writing to Beth.

Pete’s driveway came into sight, and he slowed his rig. A few Englischer customers were leaving the store as he got out of the carriage. He noticed they hadn’t bought anything. With the box in one hand and his cane in the other, he climbed the steps and went inside.

“Hey, Old Man,” Pete called. “How about shutting that door and turning the sign around? I’m done for the day.”

It wouldn’t matter if Jonah showed up at midnight; Pete never failed to sound pleased to see him. Jonah did as asked and then walked to the counter where Pete stood. In a few minutes they’d walk
to the back of the store, go through a doorway, and enter Pete’s tiny apartment.

Pete counted money from the cash-register drawer. “What brings you in this time of day?”

Jonah set the box on the countertop.

Pete laid a stack of tens on top of the drawer and moved in front of him. “This looks like it’s from that tree you and Amos dragged from the gorge.”

“Ya. I’ve only finished one project from that so far, the one Elizabeth Hertzler bought. Then I made this gift box, but I can’t for the life of me carve anything into it.”

Pete lifted the box, holding it in his hands as only a fellow carver would—with reverence and respect. He removed the lid and set it on the countertop before running his fingers across the inside of the box. “Maybe you’ve forgotten the lesson you taught me years ago.”

“I taught you?” Jonah knew the old bachelor was getting on in years, but he’d never seen him confused about anything.

“Yep.” Pete inspected the box again. “You put a lot of time into this.”

“And I’d like to finish it.”

Pete reached under the counter and pulled out a soft leather utility case. He unrolled it, revealing a set of carving tools. “You sat right there.” He pointed to an old wicker chair near the front counter. “You hadn’t been carving more than a year when you made a freestanding bird on a branch—not no relief carving, mind you.” Pete walked to his showcase and unlocked it. He brought the bird to Jonah.

“I’d forgotten about making this.”

“I won’t never forget. Look at the intricate detail. That’s not the work of an ordinary kid, or even a man, for that matter. I asked how you made it so lifelike, and you said, ‘All I did was remove everything that wasn’t the bird.’ ” Staring at the carving, Pete smiled, making his wrinkles deepen. “You were as wise as an old man from the start.”

Jonah passed him the bird. “Whenever I pick up this box to carve on it, I don’t see anything.”

Pete returned the bird to the showcase and locked it. “Blank?”

Jonah nodded.

“That doesn’t sound like you.” He pulled a twelve-millimeter gouge with a number four sweep to it from the leather pouch. “You need to remove whatever is hiding the image from you.” He placed the tool in Jonah’s palm. “The thing is, you may have to cut into more than the box to figure that out.”

Jonah squeezed the tool and thought of Beth’s letter. The oddness of that piece of wood lying in the forest, tugging at him, and then Beth’s strong draw to it felt … eerie. Yet calmness accompanied the feeling, and memories of dragging the felled tree out of the gorge absorbed him.

The cold winter day. The thick layer of snow on the ground. The exhaustion he felt as he wrestled with the elements. Amos calling to him through the frigid air. The strength of the draft horse. The sense of Christmas wonder that filled him once they’d managed to drag the tree out of the canyon.

As he stood in Pete’s store, the blank wood in his hands revealed its hidden image. It would take only a few days to create the scene.

But it might be months before he could make himself carve it.

B
eth’s arms ached from the day’s work as she left her parents’ home and walked toward the barn. Church would be held there tomorrow, and her Mamm required every bit of help she could get. It wouldn’t do for the windows not to be scrubbed clean inside and out, as well as every nook in the house and the old hardwood floors polished to a shine. After doing a thorough cleaning, they’d set up the benches in the living room, so everything was ready for the long Sunday ahead.

The sun was setting, and the early October air had a nip to it as she hitched her horse to the buggy. After climbing into the rig, she slapped the reins and began the four-mile trip back to her place.

With twenty-eight families in their district, nearly three hundred people—including babies, children, and teens—would attend. Thankfully services came to each household in the district only once a year. Unfortunately, Beth had to work just as hard when the rotation landed at her sisters’ and brothers’ places, as well as Aunt Lizzy’s. As a single woman, her life was not her own. It belonged to all her married siblings, her parents, and her aunt.

A wedding for a sibling had been celebrated every other year for the past decade. Refusing the threatening tears, she tried to choke back the sorrow.

Everyone who loved her gently prodded her to lay grief aside. They wanted her to find happiness again, but she never would. Resigned contentment perhaps, eventually. But she couldn’t say that to her family.

She longed to tell someone how she really felt and why. But her thoughts and emotions were simply too heavy and too embarrassing to pass on, so she coped the best she could.

She pulled the rig into the barn next to the shop and stepped out of the buggy with wobbly legs. She led the horse to its stall for the night, dumped feed into a trough, and hurried across the yard and into the dry goods store. Too drained to do any office work, she lit a kerosene lamp and slowly climbed the steps.

She had called this stairway “the dark, wooden tunnel” when she was a child. The steps creaked, and the paneled walls seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.

After setting the lantern on the stand beside her bed, she lit the gas pole lamp, knowing it would give off more than just light. It’d radiate enough heat to knock the chill out of the air. She took hold of the pole and rolled the lamp with her as she entered her tiny kitchen. A package and letter sat on the kitchen table.

Jonah
.

Dismal thoughts vanished, like darkness giving way to the power of a match. Snatching up the letter, she noticed it too had been opened. She was ready for her aunt to stop reading her mail from
Jonah. Because of the shared name and business, she and Lizzy often opened each other’s mail. Sometimes it didn’t matter who opened it; sometimes they didn’t know which of them it belonged to. Neither of them ever minded, but Lizzy knew Jonah was writing to Beth, so she had no reason to continue opening the letters.

She unfolded the letter, and the tart flavor of loneliness lost some of its edge.